The Imperialist eBook

“He said he would be willing to take a seat
in a Legislature and work up,” Alec went on.
“Ontario for choice, because he thought the
people of this Province more advanced.”

“There’s a representative committee being
formed to give the inhabitants of the poor-house a
turkey dinner on Thanksgiving Day,” said Advena.
“He might begin with that.”

“I dare say he would if anybody told him.
He’s just dying to be taken into the public
service,” Alec said. “He’s
in dead earnest about it. He thinks this country’s
a great place because it gives a man the chance of
a public career.”

“Why is it,” asked Advena “that
when people have no capacity for private usefulness
they should be so anxious to serve the public?”

“Oh, come,” said Lorne, “Hesketh
has an income of his own. Why should he sweat
for his living? We needn’t pride ourselves
on being so taken up with getting ours. A man
like that is in a position to do some good, and I hope
Hesketh will get a chance if he stays over here.
We’ll soon see how he speaks. He’s
going to follow Farquharson at Jordanville on Thursday
week.”

“I wonder at Farquharson,” said his father.

By this time the candidature of Mr Lorne Murchison
was well in the public eye. The Express announced
it in a burst of beaming headlines, with a biographical
sketch and a “cut” of its young fellow-townsman.
Horace Williams, whose hand was plain in every line
apologized for the brevity of the biography—­quality
rather than quantity, he said; it was all good, and
time would make it better. This did not prevent
the Mercury observing the next evening that the Liberal
organ had omitted to state the age at which the new
candidate was weaned. The Toronto papers commented
according to their party bias, but so far as the candidate
was concerned there was lack of the material of criticism.
If he had achieved little for praise he had achieved
nothing for detraction. There was no inconsistent
public utterance, no doubtful transaction, no scandalous
paper to bring forward to his detriment. When
the fact that he was but twenty-eight years of age
had been exhausted in elaborate ridicule, little more
was available. The policy he championed, however,
lent itself to the widest discussion, and it was instructive
to note how the Opposition press, while continuing
to approve the great principle involved, found material
for gravest criticism in the Government’s projected
application of it. Interest increased in the
South Fox by-election as its first touchstone, and
gathered almost romantically about Lorne Murchison
as its spirited advocate. It was commonly said
that whether he was returned or not on this occasion,
his political future was assured; and his name was
carried up and down the Dominion with every new wind
of imperial doctrine that blew across the Atlantic.
He himself felt splendidly that he rode upon the crest
of a wave of history. However the event appeared
which was hidden beyond the horizon, the great luck
of that buoyant emotion, of that thrilling suspense,
would be his in a very special way. He was exhilarated
by the sense of crisis, and among all the conferences
and calculations that armed him for his personal struggle,
he would now and then breathe in his private soul,
“Choose quickly, England,” like a prayer.